A DESPERATE FIGHT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 1647, 11 March 1922, Page 5

A DESPERATE FIGHT.

KELLY GANG RECALLED

POLICE AND MILITARY AT BAY.

London. January 29.

How one determined man held off police an)l military who besieged a house from which lie refused to bo evicted is told in a despatch from France. Paul Domblides was the name of the obdurate householder. • His exploits recall the last stand of the notorious Kelly gang in Australia, and also London ’s own Sydney Street affair. The locale is Ortliez, in the Basses Pyranees. Armed with a rifle, Domblides killed one gendarme and wounded another when they tried to turn him out. and the local police thought that the job was too much for them. A company, of the 18th Infantry was sent for and turned a machine-gun on the house. Domblides replied with what is described as “well-aimed rifle fire.” Then they tried poison gas bombs, but these did not stop the lire of the defender. Throughout the night they used acetylene Hares and kept arelights going, but it is not easy to see what good they could do, except to help the marksman under cover. At two o’clock on Saturday afternoon the defence fire died away, and an etranee was gained through a window shattered by machine-gun fire. Domblides was found dead on his kitchen floor. I snaky,, of course, the advantage is on the side of the defence, but that a company of infantry, with a machinegun, bombs and what, not, did not more speedily make an end of the fight is rather puzzling, even if the house was built of granite. It must he presumed that the assailants relied on Fabian tactics and that, therefore, none of them took chances.